Tampa and what's real

The Daily Show called Tampa "hot" and "horrible." A Daily Beast headline yesterday went with "seedy." More simplistic descriptors to come. In the Beast piece, though, I underlined one paragraph in particular:

For all its open piety, Tampa’s past contains an equal penchant for depravity. In his new book, The Dark Side of Sunshine, to be published the day Romney delivers his acceptance speech, local journalist Paul Guzzo documents a rogues’ gallery of serial killers, gangsters, and practitioners of the bolita, as Tampa’s illegal numbers racket was known.

By the 1920s, Tampa was starting to come into its own as a city. Nowhere was that more evident than in Ybor City, where gambling houses lined Seventh Avenue. Many were swank speakeasies complete with lavish décor, live bands, and free-flowing liquor. Although much of the local populace who bet on bolita did their business out of dingy storefronts, those who could afford to went to places like the El Dorado, Serafin’s, Pote’s, and the Lincoln Club. These garish nightclubs were the places to be seen; consequently, they generated millions for the underworld.

About the blog

From the beaches to the blocks of downtown Tampa, from hotel lobbies to the Tampa Bay Times Forum, from Innisbrook to Saddlebrook, everything about the Republican National Convention. Welcome to Florida. Welcome to the Tampa Bay area. Welcome to the RNC.